Identifying with specific hair color?

[LittleOrca]

I just had a thought the other day about what hair color I identify myself with. For as long as I can remember, everyone called me "blonde." I never thought of myself as blonde, since blondes were women with nearly white hair or hair that matched my yellow crayons. (http://www.refinery29.com/pipeline/img/ikeliene-stange-platinum-blonde-1.jpg) (Not to mention, growing up there is a lot of negative images on blondes and most of the people who were the most horribly cruel to me were bottle blondes). My hair never looked like Sleeping Beauty's hair (http://www.joepaduda.com/SleepingBeauty-Photo1sb_c_259.jpg) or any other blonde on TV either. It was then I identified more with people with brown hair of any shade.

When I started to dye my hair red, I started to identify with people with red hair. Now, after giving up all those bottles of red, trying to cover it with brown, and being dye free for almost 2 years, I have returned to identifying with brown hair, even though I can see in photographs in the sunlight (http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/picture.php?albumid=2521&pictureid=77136) that my hair is still kinda gold. I still can't accept all the blonde comments though for some reason, I still see myself with brown hair.

Is there a hair color that you identify with? A color that you see yourself as having though others may see you with another color?

ETA: Not that I dislike blondes or anything. I wanted to make sure that was clear. :) I try to get to know someone before I decide if I like them or not, but I will say that the blonde atmosphere can sometimes be suffocating.

[moominhapa]

I identify as having brown hair, even though most people think my hair is black. Sometimes I think that's just because I'm half Asian and they expect it to be black, but I really don't think it is! It's just dark brown, with a little bit of red in the sun. LittleOrca, your hair does look golden to me. Maybe you can say golden brown instead of blonde though if you want to identify as brown haired?

[Beatrice]

I used to argue with people over whether my hair was brown or black. I went through periods of agreeing with those who said "black," but most of my life I thought of my hair as brown. When I grew up, my hair lightened about half a shade and developed auburn highlights. Nevertheless, my Dad's mom still persists in referring to my "black" hair. I think it's funny, but I don't mind.

I'd never thought of the drastic self-image change that some women must go through, going from natural blonde to brown hair. My own mom experienced this, but never talked about it--I don't know if she cared. She was almost white as a young child but darkened up around 11 or 12.

[Laurenji]

I definitely identify with brown. My hair is pretty solidly brown--not dark enough to be close to black, not light enough to be close to blonde.

[julya]

I have always called myself blonde, and my hair looks a lot like yours LittleOrca. It was that white blonde you linked to first when I was a child, and has darkened a lot over the years.

[freckles]

I tend to identify as a redhead. In most photos my hair looks brown, but in sunlight (yeah, I still have no photos in the sunlight, I need to get some) it can look very red, and many many people in real life refer to me as 'ginger', plus, well, the freckles -- that and my dad's whole side of the family nearly is red haired (we don't have much contact with my mum's side of the family, so that pretty much means all of my family is red haired).

I don't really usually refer to my hair as 'red' because, well, I've seen people with red hair and it seems like their hair is RED and mine is sort of brown. But I feel like it should be red :p And in lots of kinds of lighting, it is :shrug: So although I usually refer to it as 'reddish brown' out loud, I tend to think of it as red. But I always feel a bit like I'm 'cheating'.

[MissManda]

I have always identified myself as being brunette. I was born with dark hair and it has stayed the same color for all my life. Even as a hennahead, I still think of myself as brunette, even though I love my color.

I once had a hairstylist tell me that I technically wasn't brunette, but a deep, deep blonde or light brown. Um, I am not either of those things. :rolleyes: Everyone has always described my hair as dark, not light, and I don't understand why the hairstylist thought I was blonde.

[Loviatar]

I'm naturally a brunette, but I've cheated for so long that I think of myself as a redhead ;)

Seriously, I hop back and forth between the two. Currently I'm hennaed, but I am identifying as brunette.

I dont think it matters. My sister however is blonde, and when my latest dye started to wash out leaving me somewhat strawberry-blonde, I was anxious to cover it up, and upset when people told me I had 'light' hair. I just can't identify as a blonde at all.

[pineconejg]

I always identified myself as a blonde until the last couple weeks. I have had dark blonde hair since I was about 4, but now my hair is really light brown. I wanted it to be blonde. But I won't dye it.

[JenniferNoel]

My natural color was black as a baby, and lightened to a tawny over the years. I haven't seen my whole head full of natural color since I was pretty little so I've never had to identify any specific color. I'm unmistakably ravenheaded now though, but I'm getting this weird new argument over the specific shade of blue streaks. Some say turquoise, some say navy, some say teal, I just say blue. :o

[teela1978]

My hair is light brown. I'm a brown head. Brunette I guess... but its light enough that if I'm hanging around people who consider their dark brown hair to definitely not be black, that I'm sometimes referred to as a blonde. When I was little it was white blonde, but it darkened up by the time I was in high school.

Brown is a troublesome descriptor because it covers such a wide range of shades though. From my end of the spectrum dark brown looks black. Apparently from the dark brown end of the spectrum I look blonde.

[Crackaleen]

I've always identified with dark brown/brunette. My hair has always pretty much been the same color although it's taken on some red and gold highlights, but I've never dyed it.

[DiablitaNoir]

My hair is black (of course), thank goodness for hair dye! It was blonde/light brown as a kid and I used to play outside a lot so I had a tan but I always wanted black hair and pale skin, even at 8 years old. I always thought it was so exotic and beautiful and I used to wish I was an Asian girl. Well, a few years later, as a teenager I started staying out of the sun and dyeing my hair and voila!

[pepperminttea]

I identify most as a brunette; my hair's mid-brown with a slight auburn tinge in sunlight. I don't mention the last part to others when they ask me IRL though, as I associate stereotypical redheads with assertiveness, and that's not a quality I have at all. I'm quite happy with being thought of as the dull brunette stereotype with my librarian's bun. :p

[spidermom]

I'm a blonde, so I'm lucky it isn't changing much. I'm going from mid-to-dark golden blonde to very light silvery-white blonde, so it's all good.

I tried red a few times, but it most certainly was not me. It was terrible with my skin tone.

[xoxophelia]

^not to be picky but I never thought of brown hair as having a dull stereotype. I think more "sultry" for brown hair.

I don't identify with anything really. I was blonde until I colored my hair dark brown and I have been growing it out but avoiding the sun. It may remain brown.

[christine1989]

I definatly adhere to the label "dark brown hair". I think it is because dying hair lighter is so popular I like to be different by keeping my natural dark brown color.

[EvaSimone]

I have dark brown hair and I identify with that.

I had a two year stint as a redhead and I always felt like I was a brunette. :shrug:

[teela1978]

I have dark brown hair and I identify with that.

I had a two year stint as a redhead and I always felt like I was a brunette. :shrug:
I always felt a bit like a phony when I dyed my hair red. I liked the red... but it felt like I was trying to be someone I wasn't. Its kinda surprising how much your hair color can define you!

[klcqtee]

Definitely identify as a red head, because I have the classic Irish colouring: fair skin, freckles, green eyes (well, technically grey/blue and yellow, but they look green up close).

My family is from north Ireland though, so I have ashy mid-brown coloured hair that I have come to terms with. There was just something "off" about me having red hair.

[May]

I identify with auburn/brunette hair because that's exactly what I have. Sometimes I dye it brown because I love the rich brunette I can achieve. No matter I do I can't shake the red unless I use an ash toned shade and even then it's still there in the sun.

[Anje]

I identify as a redhead, or sometimes as auburn. It's pretty much the color I came with, and now adding henna to chase away the brown tones that creep in just makes it more so.

[melikai]

I definitely identify with being blonde, and everyone IRL refers to me as a blonde. I was blonde until my early 20's, when I started dyeing different fun colours, and then highlighted it heavily until a couple of years ago. Once it was dyed brown accidentally, and I looked so sickly! I never tried red (tried pink and orange though :p), as red hair has never appealed to me.

My hair now has every shade of blonde imaginable!

[Roseate]

I don't really identify with a specific name of hair color; my natural color is kinda multicolored brownish blondish reddish and people describe it differently- I don't really care what you call it!

But one thing is, I always feel a little... not myself with colored hair. I've done it different colors in the past, from "natural looking" ones to the screaming violets and highlighter yellows, but no matter how fun or flattering the dye jobs were, I always felt a little relief when I got back to my real hair. (Not that that kept me from doing it all over again, for a while there!)

[jessie58]

I simply could not think of myself as anything else but a brunette. Once a long time ago, I got blonde highlights. I hated it so much, I went to get it all cut off the next day.
I also went black once but let it grow out, never maintained it or kept it going.
I now have lots of white hair coming in and try to cover them up as much as possible to keep my natural color going for as long as I can. I will be sad to see my brunette go.
I always identify with brunette stars and characters. I feel as if blondes are a different type of people and redheads are another type of people altogether.

I can identify with black hair though. Weird, we're all the same people but hair color really seems to bring some kind of identity with it doesn't it?

In fact, this particular avatar picture of my hair has reddish tones because of the lighting and it's bothering me no end, because that is not my color in reality.

[SurprisingWoman]

I also considered myself a red/auburn haired person.

When I was 15 an "older" boy at the skating rink said my hair was, "chestnut brown with red highlights." *swoon*

When I went to get my driver's license renewed I put silver on the application...

my license says gray. ;)

[Tabihito]

Very definitely brunette. Save for when I dyed, there's no red in there, and it's way too dark to be thought of as having even the slightest hint of blonde, but still definitely not black. So very, very much brunette. I've always called myself that, and always will, until my family's tendency to go grey in the late thirties catches up with me, at which point I'll have to decide whether to embrace it or to dye my hair back to its original color every so often.

[Xi]

I like this thread! It is so neat to hear others' musings on the colour of their hair.:cool: In the past, I've identified only with hair length -- any colour my hair chose to be was fine with me, as long as it would consent to be long. :rolleyes: But now as my silvers are starting to appear, perhaps I will begin to pay attention to colour more? I think I'm ready to identify with salt-and-pepper hair...:sun:

[autumnsakura]

My hair has always been undeniably red. My only quibble (mostly with my mother ;)) is the *shade* of red. It's true that when I was a baby, my hair was more of a strawberry blonde shade, but as I've gotten older, it's darkened a bit, so now I think of it as a rich copper shade. My mother insists on calling my hair strawberry blonde, but when I look at some friends of mine with hair that is truly reddish-blonde, I think my hair is too dark for the category.

I will say that up until a few years ago, I desperately wanted brown-to-black hair. So lovely. But people are always telling me that they wish they could have my hair color, so I guess the grass is always greener on the other side :p.

[hybrise]

I was born blonde, but my hair darkened to brunette by the time I was about 6 or 7, and has stayed that way ever since. Though, in sunlight (and especially when the color naturally highlights from lots of sun in the summer) I have always had red highlights, enough that some people who initially met me outside in the summer thought I was a redhead. I guess because of that, and because I have always LOVED red hair, I always called myself "reddish brown" or "brown with red tones/highlights" even though I was more of a caramel/medium brown in any other light.

I could never get away with just red until I hennaed, which I can't get enough of and a lot of people seem to think is my natural colour. :shrug: I loved my blondeish, reddish caramel hair, but I've never been as confident or as comfortable with my hair as I have been since I hennaed it.

[lpsqt60]

I am a brunette and strangely enough as I have aged, like I am so old now:rolleyes:) my hair has darkened to an even deeper brunette. Yet secretly, as a girl, I always wanted auburn hair, sigh, I am grateful though that in direct sunlight I do have reddish highlights.
P.S. I'm too chicken to dye my hair and be the inner auburn haired girl inside me;).

[rapunzhell13]

I've gone a multitude of colours over the years, but at heart I'm a brunette.

[sunshine-locks]

Hmm, I've been dyeing my hair since i hit 12, but before that it was blonde, I am now 14, and my regrowth looks rather more like a light strawberry blonde than just blonde, and the hairs I shed are a mixed bag, the new growth, well half is growing in ginger-blonde and the other half, dark brown-black.. :confused:

[Aleria]

I've always felt best with black, rather than my natural red-brown colour. I dye it, and add some turquoise streaks for the fun of it.

[schweedie]

This is interesting! I've always thought of myself as blonde; my hair was a fairly light golden colour when I was younger, but it seems to have darkened a bit lately. My mum said it was light brown a little while ago, and I protested vigorously. Not sure why - I like brown hair, even dyed it brown many years ago, and I had red hair for a while which I loved. But now I suddenly identify strongly with being blonde.

[VenusHalley]

My mother insists I have brown hair, although I call it red or "redish". She says there is nothing red about my hair... For some reason it kinda bothers me, lol.

[Phexlyn]

I most identify with strawberry/reddish blonde, although I don't have the red shimmer in my hair by nature. I used to be light blonde, and it has darkened to medium/dark blonde over the years.
Sometimes people start to argue whether I'm blonde or brunette, and sometimes I would have preferred to be brunette because there were just too many cliché (bottle) blondes around. I just didn't want to fall into that group. (Mind you, this happened during my teenage and early university years - I'm definitely not opposed to bottle blondes in general).
However, I often think I should have been born a redhead, or at least some sort of coppery blonde. Maybe the henna will help ;)

[Monsterkitti]

Im have dark brown hair and definatly identify as a brunette. Ive tried blonde and it looks just wrong on me :) I do love dark red I get from henna but I still call myself brunette :)

[jackiesjottings]

Oh yes- red. I was born with really red hair. It was then auburn for a long time and is now more strawberry blonde going silver. But I always think of myself as a red head. I have Gaelic colouring anyway, due to Scottish ancestry (and my where my brother now lives in Northern Scotland I see a lot of people with my colouring). Fair skin, freckles and green eyes.

Lots of people call me blonde, and I guess I am more blonde than red really, but I always think of myself as a redhead, identify with redheads, and love red hair. I always notice redheads. I often wish I had stayed properly red, although my natural colour is a nice one anyway.

So yes.. redhead here even if my hair lies!

[meph]

I identify myself with red, my hair is definitely red red and I'm the stereotype ginger kid. I think I would feel weird if I dyed my hair brown, blonde or black. Not only because I am used to being seen as that red haired girl, but also because the rest of my colouring screams redhead (freckles, extremely pale, blue / grey eyes, ginger eyebrows and lashes - even in black and white pictures you could probably identify me as a ginger).
Though, when I was little, I always wanted to dye my hair black mostly because I hated my own hair colour. Luckily I never did that because it would've looked awful.

[Othala]

I would say my hair colour is pewter.

[constantki]

I've been told that me hair is black by a lot of people, but I always thought of it as just REALLY REALLY dark brown!
I can't imagine myself as a light haired girl, but black seems foreign in a way to me.

[Alvrodul]

When I was a child, my hair was a pale blonde, and it darkened, as it so often does. But in my early twenties, I wanted my hair to still be blond, so I highlighted and bleached it to death.
Later, I got somewhat more sensible, and dyed my hair slightly darker than my natural color - which was somewhat less hard on it, especially as I would try to stretch out the intervals between the times when I dyed my hair.
These days, my hair is auburn thanks to Henna. Reddish, yes, but not carroty - a very nice color, and one that I very much like!:)

[Khiwanean]

I'd say I'm currently dark blonde. My hair was that nearly white blonde when I was little though. Someday I'll probably be brunette, but we'll see how long I can keep calling myself blonde before then.

[Nightshade]

I always identified as a redhead, even as a kid. Started amping up the red when I was 11 and haven't stopped yet!

[TrudieCat]

Another who had white-blond hair as a kid that's darkened to something like a dark blond/light brown. I still identify as a blond but it might be time to reconsider. Stylists and several acquaintances have suggested I add highlights to it, to "brighten it up," which I find annoying.

I got really tired of the blond comments in my younger days whenever I would have a (perfectly normal :D) brain fart.

[Carolyn]

I've always been an ashy blonde. It's darkened slightly over the years and now have a bunch of silvers. I have it dyed to match my natural color. I've always loved being a blonde. I even love blonde jokes. Once I accidentally went strawberry blonde when I was using at home Level 2 color. I freaked out. I was surprised by my strong reaction to the reddish tones. Now I'm happily a medium ashy blonde and plan to stay that way.

[kabelaced]

I've always hated being associated with blonde, even though my hair was a really light bleach blonde when I was a little girl. As I got older, my hair turned strawberry blonde and some days it was flat out orange, which made me really happy (I have an old class photo to prove this - people always asked me if I dyed my hair!). Blondes had a bad rap in school, and after a while I kind of internalized the "look" with fakeness (too many people began dyeing their hair that ultra platinum fake blonde, getting blonde highlights to look trendy).

On the contrary, I associated redheads with intelligence back in school, and strove to get good grades and fulfill that prophecy, even though I didn't always look like a redhead. So I'm a wannabe, because my hair never knows what color it actually wants to be unless I decide for it (by hennaing!).

It was also fun to be a "redhead" when my two stepsisters were blonde and brunette, respectively. We used to say we were a walking joke ("One time, there was a blonde, a brunette and a redhead walking down the road..."). :D

[Gatubela]

I think of myself as a brown head although i'm blonde to some people and it's really not completely brown.:confused:

[Medievalmaniac]

I was born a blonde(I darkened to reddish brown as a teenager)...but as my mother will tell you, I was always a redhead. :D

[squiggyflop]

i identify with red.. but then again if my hair were to grow out its natural color it would be chestnut brown at the roots, auburn at shoulder, getting redder and lighter to the ends which at my length would be strawberry blonde..

i think i never really ideantified with red when my hair was its natural color.. mostly because i thought it was all the color of my roots.. i never noticed the ends but everyone else did.. my hair was just barely red enough to have people say 'the girl over there with the red hair' when talking about me when they thought i was out of earshot

[Merewen]

I've always identified as blond. I'm not sure I"m so blond anymore, but I still think of my hair as blond. The parts I see by my eyes are still blond, even if the rest isn't. In any case, I really like my color how it is, blond or no, but my gut reaction on my hair color is always straight "blond".

I kinda hate the dumb blond stereotype though, but mostly because it has evolved with a few people I know to this really weird thing that makes no sense.

Person I know: "She drives me nuts! She's so blond!" (aka, she acts ditzy)
Me: *raises eyebrow* "I'm blond."
Person I know: "No you're not. You have blond hair, you aren't A BLOND."

Right.